A juvenile detention center in Cherokee supported by Carroll County is on probation for a month because it kept a 17-year-old boy in leg restraints for nearly 48 hours and locked up in solitary confinement for nearly a week.

Fire Chief Greg Schreck and Police Chief Jeff Cayler —watching closely
the 49-person fire-code capacity in the chambers at the Farner
Government Building — had to keep at least 10 people waiting in the
hallway, unable to enter the meeting Monday night.

Innovation and efficiency were highlighted Wednesday afternoon when Gov.
Terry Branstad toured Pella Corp. in Carroll. Carroll was the
governor’s final stop of the day — he started with an Ash Wednesday
service in Des Moines and worked his way through Webster City, Ogden and
Jefferson.

U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, in her first official visit to Greene County,
mingled Tuesday in Jefferson with more than 50 veterans and
economic-development advocates before participating in a program on Home
Base Iowa, a state initiative to recruit returning military men and
women.

She then directed her full attention — amid of roomful of veterans and
regional economic-development advocates in Jefferson Tuesday afternoon —
to Coon Rapids’ David Muhr, the father of the late Shawn Muhr, an
American soldier who died in Afghanistan just over four years ago.

Carroll City Council members Monday night tabled a proposal to finance a
plan for development of a $1.8 million remodeling-and-technology
upgrade of the existing Carroll Public Library with no expansion.

Councilman Tom Tait, who has been leading an effort to jump-start a
Carroll Public Library-improvement plan, said Sunday he has at least
five votes to approve funding for a study to remodel the current
library.

The Audubon City Council — which has endured a barrage of criticism from
residents at its regularly scheduled meetings since its illegal vote to
fire its then-city clerk in January — voted 4-1 Monday to cut the
number of those meetings by half and start 90 minutes earlier.

Emergency vehicles rushing to calls — from law-enforcement cars to fire
trucks to ambulances — will turn traffic signals green more quickly at
one of the busiest intersections in Carroll under a measure the Carroll
City Council approved Monday night.